STAFF BULLETIN
for Indian Hills Staff
Staff Bulletins
We have been handling communication to the staff through the Two-Week Calendar that Joan puts out (Thanks, Joan!), which has worked very well and keeps everyone updated on events and their dates and times, and through e-mails that I have sent to the staff about different issues. We are going to continue with the Two-Week Calendar as we have been doing, and I would like to add a new twist to my communication to you. We recently signed up for a program called "Smore," which as some of you may know, sets up a template for bulletins, newsletters, announcements, etc. I'm planning on using that for staff bulletins for the rest of this year in order to increase communication to the staff. This is the first edition of the Staff Bulletin. It will be recognizable by the blue banner across the top with the title. I hope that this helps with our communication, and I welcome any feedback about the "Bulletin" format.
PLCs
We did quite a bit of training around PLCs a few years ago, and with all of the new staff at Indian hills, the IH leadership team (Kim M., Stacia, Sara R., Allyson, and I) thought that it would be helpful for us to review some information around the purpose and practices associated with Academic Seminars. In the coming weeks, we'll be discussing PLCs.
A first change that we are making is in the title of the Wednesday Academic Seminars. To more accurately reflect the purpose of the Seminars, we will be referring to them as Teacher-Directed PLCs and Principal-Directed PLCs.
Academic Seminars
I would like to thank the IH Leadership Team of Sara R., Stacia, Allyson, and Kim M. for attending the District Leadership meetings this year, for the discussions to bring the information back to us at IH, and for their planning and delivery of the training in the Principal-Directed PLCs this year. I have received very positive feedback from teachers about the presentations, and I saw that first hand today during Kim's presentation and the discussion and sharing of ideas that followed the presentation. All of the current research supports teacher leadership as a way to lead collaboration, and it has since the 1980s. Our teacher leadership team here and the engagement of our staff supports that research.